Employee involvement for continuous improvement and production repetitiveness: a contingency perspective for achieving organisational outcomes

Abstract

A debated issue in the literature regards whether the effect of employee involvement for continuous improvement on organisational outcomes differs in contexts with different degrees of production repetitiveness. Divergent positions can be found both in the OM and HRM field. This paper aims at investigating the direct and indirect effect (through Just In Time (JIT) and Total Quality Management (TQM)) of employee involvement for continuous improvement on organisational outcomes (quality, cost, responsiveness and employee relations), and the moderation of production repetitiveness on both these effects. Survey data analyses support that employee involvement for continuous improvement has a significant indirect effect on organisational outcomes through JIT and TQM which is not moderated by production repetitiveness. Instead, lowering production repetitiveness, the direct impact of employee involvement decreases and could become even non-significant. These results contribute to OM and HRM literatures, by emphasising the need to distinguish between direct and indirect effect when studying the role of production repetitiveness as a contingency. Overall, this research contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms through which employee involvement for continuous improvement affect organisational outcomes.

Keywords:

• Employee involvement
• problem-solving
• continuous improvement
• lean
• High Performance Manufacturing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the CARIPARO Foundation, Padova, Italy.

Notes on contributors

Andrea Roberto Beraldin

Andrea Roberto Beraldin received BS and MS Graduate degrees (both first class Hons.) and a Ph.D in management and engineering from the University of Padova, Italy. His main research interests regard lean management in both manufacturing and service industries. He participated in national and international projects regarding these topics and he is co-author of publications in international conferences and international journals. He is now working as Industrial Control Specialist in a multinational food company.

Pamela Danese

Pamela Danese, PhD, received the MS Graduate degree (first class Hons.) in management and engineering from the University of Padova, Italy. She is currently an Associate Professor of Operations & Supply Chain Management at University of Padova. She is a coordinator of the EDEN Doctoral Seminar on Research Methodology in Operations Management. She is Associate Editor of International Journal of Operations and Production Management, Area Editor of Operations Management Research and a member of the Editorial Review Board of Journal of Operations Management. She was a member of the European Operations Management Association (EurOMA) board and chair of EurOMA communication team. She is Director of the Master in Lean Management of Fondazione CUOA, Italy. Her research interests focus on lean management and supply chain management. She has published in several prestigious journals and has 3,104 citations on Google Scholar (h-index:29).

Pietro Romano

Pietro Romano is a Full Professor of Supply Chain Management and New Product Development at the University of Udine (Italy). He graduated in Management and Engineering and completed his PhD in Operations and Supply Chain Management at the University of Padova. He is Director of the Master in Coffee Science and Economics at Illy Academy and of the Executive Master in Operations and Supply Chain Management at CUOA Business School. He is involved in several research projects on lean- and supply chain management-related topics and his articles have been published on the main OM&SCM academic journals (4,629 citations on Google Scholar and 32 h-index).